News Hawthorn Racism Review - No player name speculation - opposition posters tread very carefully

[Strapping Young Lad]

Wrong. Hawks did what they had to do by the rules of the AFL.

Correct. For reference below, once the HFC had the report outlining serious allegations they were duty bound by the AFL’s protocol to hand over the report to the AFL integrity unit.

I will pin this post, as it seems to be a constant query.

 

[The Jet From Poowong]

I am not sure a silent financial settlement is possible. Who is that going to suit? Just enable further accusations from all angles.
This is a going to be a lengthy and costly battle with many bystanders dragged into it

 

[Bugs1977]

Brad Hardie on 6PR over here in Perth saying that there’s a rumour/story building that Fagan’s mention in the report is mistaken identity and it was another person.

Would be a big development in the story if true. Can anyone think of any Hawthorn coaches/staffers that resembled Fages back then?

I was thinking Bevo and even though not an assistant coach maybe Graham Wright

 

[Mercy Seat]

 

[Messenger]

One interesting angle out of this sorry saga is a discussion on how much of an involvement clubs should have in players life’s.

I mean what other workplace offers to board young workers in the houses of their bosses (coaches)? Or why do clubs care what activities players get up to on the off season (why should my employee care what I do in my holidays)?

And of course no other workplace would ever tell an employee who they should date (if that’s proven).

Could a possible outcome of all this be that AFL clubs become more of a traditional workplace? In that you turn up to work (training/game day) do your thing then clock off.

No involvement of the clubs at all in the players life’s aside from making sure they play well and turn up to training / meet their ski folds / etc. In essence meet their KPIs?

In essence a purely employer/employee relationship with no “father figure” overtones?

Clubs may decide this is the safest course of action after this all played out.

These are young Men who have been on the professional sport fast track for a few years. They enter a regime which demands much of them physically and mentally and they have money in their pockets.

Clubs can have systems in place for health and nutrition, provide an internal mentor for training behaviours, provide a cultural liaison for First Nations players and their families and even fill some gaps on financial knowledge.

However, you cannot police their relationships. You cannot tie family choices to football outcomes. And you cannot provide advice to First Nations players because they are First Nations players. Some of things are none of your business.

 

[Bugs1977]

These are young Men who have been on the professional sport fast track for a few years. They enter a regime which demands much of them physically and mentally and they have money in their pockets.

Clubs can have systems in place for health and nutrition, provide an internal mentor for training behaviours, provide a cultural liaison for First Nations players and their families and even fill some gaps on financial knowledge.

However, you cannot police their relationships. You cannot tie family choices to football outcomes. And you cannot provide advice to First Nations players because they are First Nations players. Some of things are none of your business.

Boom. Nailed it in one post

 

[Brishawk]

I think it's more nuanced than that.

In this thread alone and certainly in the media, there's a lot of "what were they even doing talking about xxxx with a player??". The reality is, not many people outside the coaching fraternity understand the level of involvement a coach has in the lives of a young 18 year old. Whether that's right or wrong, that's the scope of the job in modern footy, and there needs to be some level of context to be able to quantify what is overreach.

I think if the accusations are proved true, then no coach as part of the investigation will let them off, but it will assist with the grey areas.

That nobody outside the coaching fraternity understands the level of involvement a coach has in the lives of a young 18 year old is central to the problem.

Coaches can provide context through their testimony but their practice of intervention in players lives will be on trial here. Coaches should not be in a position to judge other coaches. The community standards are the relevant ones here, not coaching standards.

If the afl stacks the deck with coaches and football people there is absolutely no chance that the findings will be accepted outside of the afl industry. They should steer clear of this sort of conflict.

For example, Luke hodge was asked/told not to go home as he wouldn’t eat well. There is no context in which that is ok. But a coach will likely see that as reasonable. While the impetus for this investigation is racism, the broader issue of coaches intervening in player lives will likely be dragged into the scope. Mostly because the coaches will want to assure the panel they don’t do these things lightly or exclusively to indigenous players. How does it benefit the investigation to have a coach on the panel in this case? There is simply no way known coaches will want to see coaches criticised for intervening in Luke Hodge’s life because likely every coach does this.

 

[PT Bar None]

I used to be in the ADF - they certainly held some very strange ideas about the sort of things they held sway over in a young enlisted's personal life. Saw some stuff done and accepted that certainly qualifies as "weird". Although I believe most of that was disestablished in the early 2000's.

I was reminded of that by pondering the phrase posted above: "this is a workplace" and trying to reconcile a safe workplace where so many activities are effectively sanctioned assault. Today I work at a bank. So the phrase "bring your mouthguards Monday" would be beyond weird.

Whilst this thread was locked, I had a comment chambered about "late stage capitalism entering the chat" based upon a shared article (Caro's) describing how HFC couldn't find money for a welfare officer beyond part time despite making 7 digits of profit. But upon further pondering, I think this shows the restriction of the soft cap and further underlines the point Eldorado made some days ago about the AFL needing to take custodianship of these position types, and then placing them at the clubs.

And yes - Jeff wasn't at the club at the time and should not be swept up with the accusations.

But still, he's the biggest and most powerful dog in our yard today. So please forgive me, but I get a little eye twitch when I hear "we have no cultural problems anymore. That stuff is, albeit horrific, history and involves people no longer here"

 

[Simon Crawshay]

Brad Hardie on 6PR over here in Perth saying that there’s a rumour/story building that Fagan’s mention in the report is mistaken identity and it was another person.

Would be a big development in the story if true. Can anyone think of any Hawthorn coaches/staffers that resembled Fages back then?

If that is true can you imagine the payout that Fagan will be seeking in the courts for slander and loss of reputation!

I would be thinking seven figure sum.

If true (note I say if) would be a huge blow to the investigation as that's a critical error and should have been verified before report was issued.

 

[HairyO]

If that is true can you imagine the payout that Fagan will be seeking in the courts for slander and loss of reputation!

I would be thinking seven figure sum.

If true (note I say if) would be a huge blow to the investigation as that's a critical error and should have been verified before report was issued.

Or more than 7 figures.

He could have a crack at Big Footy and every other social media site too. Especially when moderators have fallen over themselves to believe he was guilty and declaring that anyone who doesnt take every claim at face value is racist.

Then it also helps Clarko because getting who was in the room wrong then opens up the question of what else was wrong.

That said, Brad Hardie could be completely wrong in what he has said and Fagan was actually in the room.

Probably why idle or malicious speculation over the next 2 months wont actually mean anything. The AFL report then the subsequent WorkSafe investigation then all the court cases over the next 3 or 5 years will mean something.

 

[Nastyfish]

According to Caro, Cyril has teamed up with the other accusers and are preparing a class action against the hawthorn football club. Irrespective of the independent AFL review. They won’t be pursuing individuals it will be about us as a club, so yes, things are going to get very costly, even just in terms of preparing a defence.

And Tasmania are just one of our sponsors being urged to drop us immediately, so as things get worse this is surely a possibility as well.

I wonder whether this will ever get to court from the players. For any class action they would need to be prepared to give sworn evidence and be exposed to cross-examination. Is there a way to do this in a culturally acceptable way? Are the players ready for public exposure, and for having their evidence contested and attacked by a sharp lawyer?

I could see that potentially the afl does its examination, makes its findings on the balance of probabilities and then mea culpa and $ settlement from the hawks/afl are organised, surely alongside recommendations for systemic changes for the hawks and all afl clubs. We cannot prejudge the findings, but it looks bad from what we have seen.

If the afl examination does not have new access to the players, it will be based on the statements already gathered for the hawks review, and on new evidence provided by the hawks coaches/staff, whistleblower(s) and whoever else comes forth - some of this material seems likely to be strongly conflicting. This will pose a tough challenge for the examination, especially to hold individuals to account when accounts of the “facts” vary.

More uncertain is the position of the coaches. If they don’t accept the findings of the examination they have a decision to make on the possible legal options available to them, eg for any impact on employment and/or for libel from the media organisations which ran the stories. Would clarko, fagan etc be prepared to go to court to clear their names?

A lot to play out but it’s hard to see any off ramp that all parties could readily accept.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

These are young Men who have been on the professional sport fast track for a few years. They enter a regime which demands much of them physically and mentally and they have money in their pockets.

Clubs can have systems in place for health and nutrition, provide an internal mentor for training behaviours, provide a cultural liaison for First Nations players and their families and even fill some gaps on financial knowledge.

However, you cannot police their relationships. You cannot tie family choices to football outcomes. And you cannot provide advice to First Nations players because they are First Nations players. Some of things are none of your business.

I get all that.

But it's a fine line between giving support/education (i.e. financial counselling) and outright control (i.e. telling players not to give all their cash to hanger ons/mates) even if that might be given in the best interest of the player.

If a footy club was just treated as a place of employment (turn up, do your job, get paid and go home) then they wouldn't provide these extra services (counselors, financial support, liaison officers, etc) but nor would they be at any risk of overstepping any boundaries.

You could argue this might be a net negative to player welfare but it would also reduce risk to the club from what we are seeing here.

End of a day an employers duty is to ensure a safe workplace. They aren't responsible for what you do out of workplace hours.

The more you get involved in someone's life the more you get tangled up in their personal affairs which is risky.

You can't tell me the other 17 clubs aren't doing this very same calculation in their heads right now.

 

[Back One Out]

A player told the authors: “My partner and daughter were then not allowed to fly over to Melbourne to come and see me until my daughter was four months old, as the club had told my partner and myself that they would be a distraction to my football career.

I'm struggling to understand what this actually means.

How on earth does anyone prevent a person from buying a plane ticket to Melbourne and reuniting with their loved one? Was the player & his partner so helpless, they didn't know how to make an airline reservation? Were they were relying on someone at the club to do so on their behalf? Were they simply lacking the funds and hoping the club would pay for the flights over?

Or had Clarkson so completely crushed the player's mind, body and spirit, and controlled every moment of his life, that he was able to dictate his own law to players like some crazed cult leader?

I mean, this is going to form part of the discrimination case against Hawthorn; that officials isolated players from their families. It makes for good copy in the Herald Sun. But how will it actually stack up under rigorous scrutiny? Won't this part be laughed out of court?

If the player and his partner & baby daughter missed each other so much, then why didn't they fly over and be with him? It's a free country, isn't it?

 

[Simon Crawshay]

I wonder whether this will ever get to court from the players. For any class action they would need to be prepared to give sworn evidence and be exposed to cross-examination. Is there a way to do this in a culturally acceptable way? Are the players ready for public exposure, and for having their evidence contested and attacked by a sharp lawyer?

I could see that potentially the afl does its examination, makes its findings on the balance of probabilities and then mea culpa and $ settlement from the hawks/afl are organised, surely alongside recommendations for systemic changes for the hawks and all afl clubs. We cannot prejudge the findings, but it looks bad from what we have seen.

If the afl examination does not have new access to the players, it will be based on the statements already gathered for the hawks review, and on new evidence provided by the hawks coaches/staff, whistleblower(s) and whoever else comes forth - some of this material seems likely to be strongly conflicting. This will pose a tough challenge for the examination, especially to hold individuals to account when accounts of the “facts” vary.

More uncertain is the position of the coaches. If they don’t accept the findings of the examination they have a decision to make on the possible legal options available to them, eg for any impact on employment and/or for libel from the media organisations which ran the stories. Would clarko, fagan etc be prepared to go to court to clear their names?

A lot to play out but it’s hard to see any off ramp that all parties could readily accept.

If they hadn't named Clarko and Fagan by name I can see how they could have done an in house investigation and arranged a mea culpa payout to the players.

But as soon as Clarko and Fagan were named this could only ever be resolved in court and if the players involved don't want to go to court then how can you do a payout?

Because if you do a payout you are accepting the players story of events and if Clarko and Fagan are still hotly contesting it they would see this as admission of guilt and it will just escalate even further.

 

[HairyO]

If they hadn't named Clarko and Fagan by name I can see how they could have done an in house investigation and arranged a mea culpa payout to the players.

But as soon as Clarko and Fagan were named this could only ever be resolved in court and if the players involved don't want to go to court then how can you do a payout?

Because if you do a payout you are accepting the players story of events and if Clarko and Fagan are still hotly contesting it they would see this as admission of guilt and it will just escalate even further.

As soon as the player names come out I assume they sue the club as well, because they were asked to share their experiences and were told it would be anonymous.

 

[theiaofseed]

As soon as the player names come out I assume they sue the club as well, because they were asked to share their experiences and were told it would be anonymous.

If the leak came from Hawthorn not the AFL, also doesn't help they spoke to a journalist outside of the review.

Just a mess on top of a mess.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

As soon as the player names come out I assume they sue the club as well, because they were asked to share their experiences and were told it would be anonymous.

My god the more you think about this the messier it gets!

 

[Mercy Seat]

As soon as the player names come out I assume they sue the club as well, because they were asked to share their experiences and were told it would be anonymous.

They’ve spoken directly with the media. They would have been warned there’s a risk of their names coming out when that happened.

 

[Nastyfish]

If they hadn't named Clarko and Fagan by name I can see how they could have done an in house investigation and arranged a mea culpa payout to the players.

But as soon as Clarko and Fagan were named this could only ever be resolved in court and if the players involved don't want to go to court then how can you do a payout?

Because if you do a payout you are accepting the players story of events and if Clarko and Fagan are still hotly contesting it they would see this as admission of guilt and it will just escalate even further.

I think recommendations for systemic change are guaranteed and a payout also very likely, even if the latter is done for hurt and suffering without unequivocal findings about the actions of the coaches. But fully agree it’s hard to see how everyone can be content with the outcome, and it seems most likely the coaches will be left with tough decisions to make on whether they want to take it further.

 

[HairyO]

If the leak came from Hawthorn not the AFL, also doesn't help they spoke to a journalist outside of the review.

Just a mess on top of a mess.

For sure. Vultures will be picking at this for years. It sounds like the club is already offering assistance to the players and I assume the AFL is too.

Makes you wonder what the AFLPA is doing. Surely the welfare of the players even after they leave football is one of their primary missions. Clubs its understandable that connections get severed, whether the players go to a different AFL club, to a regional club, or leave football altogether. But the AFLPA is meant to be there during and after.

Wellbeing

As part of our mental health and wellbeing services, the AFLPA offers free, confidential and professional counselling support for all current and past players.

www.aflplayers.com.au

Supposedly support for current and former players. Be interesting to know how much it is used.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

I think recommendations for systemic change are guaranteed and a payout also very likely, even if the latter is done for hurt and suffering without unequivocal findings about the actions of the coaches. But fully agree it’s hard to see how everyone can be content with the outcome, and it seems most likely the coaches will be left with tough decisions to make on whether they want to take it further.

Given the players and the coaches are coming from totally different views I just don’t see how any compromise can be made on this issue.

And if mediation isn’t possible then the only option is the courts because what will Clarko and Fagan have to lose, their reputations have already been smashed in the media.

 

[Fleabane]

One interesting angle out of this sorry saga is a discussion on how much of an involvement clubs should have in players life’s.

I mean what other workplace offers to board young workers in the houses of their bosses (coaches)? Or why do clubs care what activities players get up to on the off season (why should my employee care what I do in my holidays)?

And of course no other workplace would ever tell an employee who they should date (if that’s proven).

Could a possible outcome of all this be that AFL clubs become more of a traditional workplace? In that you turn up to work (training/game day) do your thing then clock off.

No involvement of the clubs at all in the players life’s aside from making sure they play well and turn up to training / meet their ski folds / etc. In essence meet their KPIs?

In essence a purely employer/employee relationship with no “father figure” overtones?

Clubs may decide this is the safest course of action after this all played out.

Sure, a hands off approach might be the safest course of action but not necessarily a realistic option. Footy clubs are just not your average workplace. A lot of players are very young and without family, coming from interstate. Also, they are elite athletes being paid to perform at the highest level within a team environment; their lifestyle choices do matter.
I agree the club player relationship needs to be revisited and improved generally to prevent horrific overreaches but I can’t see a totally hands off approach working or being enough of a support, especially for young players.

 

[smeltitdeltit]

Brad Hardie on 6PR over here in Perth saying that there’s a rumour/story building that Fagan’s mention in the report is mistaken identity and it was another person.

Would be a big development in the story if true. Can anyone think of any Hawthorn coaches/staffers that resembled Fages back then?

Imagine the size of the law suit Fagan would bring.

 

[HedgeFund]

Jeff Kennett was president at the time, no? Surprised his name hasn’t been mentioned in all of this given his focus on governance and accountability for results.

Newbold apparently. Hence he has stepped aside as a member of the AFL Commission

 

[Jazzfan]

Did anyone else feel sick reading the alleged email trail with Newbold whereby the fiance said her partner had talked to the playing group about being asked to break off his engagement?

Newbold and Evans have now been named in the media as part of this, I truly hope our leadership group isn't brought into question as having known some of these allegations at the time... but right now it just feels more and more are going to be caught up in this.

 

[HedgeFund]

Its a messy situation. We'll have different proceedings in different jurisdictions.
My gut feeling is that these matters won't settle neatly and confidentially at mediation.
Proceedings involving the players suing the coaches and the club would only settle, you would think, if the coaches were prepared to admit liability - you can't expect or imagine the players and their families accepting anything less.

And if the coaches admit liability, then they kiss goodbye to multi-million coaching contracts, so why would they do that?

It's very early days - but this has the makings on an endless dog's breakfast that will keep us in the headlines for a year or three.

Remember Prince Andrew paying his way out of that civil law suit over the Epstein underage private island claims? It’s not impossible to make bad things go away and still somehow stand up straight at a funeral.

Reckon the only feasible way of nearly wrapping up this cluster * would involve:

1. a Worksafe investigation / prosecution which is settled between the club & WSV; and

2. one private / civil action eventually settling with a confidential Deed of Settlement covering that litigation AND any/all claims/actions which could arise in the future (ie. agree to not pursue any other claims/actions against HFC/AFL/individuals)

I’d be praying for this if I was a respondent to any claim.